This March 12, 2010 New York Times article, Deciding on Care for Elderly Parents in Declining Health, made me think about the process my husband and I experienced with his mother following a stroke. This is the second of several posts describing our journey. Read Part I of Mother’s Move Part III Part IV Preparing … Continue reading
Filed under Coordinating All of Our Lives …
Moving Aging Parents, Mother’s Move, Part I: When?
This New York Times article, Deciding on Care for Elderly Parents in Declining Health, made me think about the process my husband and I experienced with his mother following a stroke. This is the first of several postings describing our journey. Read Part II of Moving Mother Series Part III Part IV Why/When We Decided … Continue reading
Aging Parents: Asking Questions After a Death
A friend whose mother is seriously ill asked, “What do you think about after your parent is gone, the services are over, and you are moving on with life, but without the person?” My answer? We share memories and we ask questions. The memories are easy, because they come to us. No matter what … Continue reading
Aging Parents, Boomer Children, Lifelong Learning – TED
I am planning to share a site that features lots of intellectual content with my 86-year-old father, a retired college professor and minister, the next time I visit. During the past several months an occasional posting on this blog has linked to a video presentation on the TED site. This organization, devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading,” … Continue reading
Health Information on the Web, Part II: Evaluating Web Sites
I am enormously frustrated when I speak with people, aging adults or otherwise, who go online seeking medical information without using effective search and evaluation skills. In this day and age, the most important web task for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren, is to learn how to evaluate the information we find on the … Continue reading
Snow Shoveling: A Reminder About Getting Older
With all the snow in the Washington area this past week (two blizzards and about 30 inches in my neck of the woods), we are shoveling several times each day. Our work is even harder than we expected because our neighborhood snow blower needed a repair just as the first blizzard finished up. But we … Continue reading
Caregivers: Looking Back, Giving Back
We were fortunate to have people and places who helped us care for my husband’s mother. During the last year of mother’s life, things were intense, and sometimes we wished that we could be taken care of, too. Choosing to help with mother’s care and to have her near us, especially before she needed substantial … Continue reading
Making Our House Safer: For Aging Parents and For Ourselves
My husband and I keep hearing about people who fall inside their homes, some of them older seniors and some in our age range (50’s – 60’s). Most people trip over an area rug or lose their balance in the bathroom or on steps. Check out this online PowerPoint lecture at the University of Pittsburgh Supercourse … Continue reading
Overcompensating After a Parent Dies
We are now in the second week after the death of my husband’s mother. The two of us are taking it easy and accomplishing the most important tasks. Also, we are breathing a bit easier because Mother is no longer in such extreme discomfort. The last few weeks were tough for her. However, I’ve noticed … Continue reading
After Death Details, Part I: Grief
Grief … It has been a week since my husband’s mother died. We miss her, though we are glad she is not in the extreme discomfort that she experienced at the end. We’ve laughed and we’ve cried, more of the former, because she lived a long and rich life. Saying goodbye takes time. Photograph albums … Continue reading
Parent Legacies: Modeling Philanthropy
Charitable giving has always been important in my family.The time and energy that my parents, now in their mid-80’s and starting their 61st year of marriage, spent on service to others has, I believe, has contributed not only to their rich lives, but also to their good health. I cannot remember a time when I … Continue reading
ADL’s and IADL’s: What’s the Difference?
Links to other postings about ADL’s are at the bottom. In an earlier post I was not as accurate as I should have been about activities of daily living. The functional tasks in the daily lives of older seniors are divided into two parts, activities of daily living (ADL’s) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL’s).
Dementia: Caregivers
Committed caregivers make the dementia experience tolerable, and tolerable is about the best we can feel as we live through this terrible disease. My husband and I are caregivers to his mother, but we also have strong, warm, and compassionate caregivers who spend much of the day with her. These women are making our experience … Continue reading
Seniors: Avoid Online Fraud
All of us, no matter what our ages, need to take care when we buy things online. There is so much to learn about the online world, and deceptive or fraudulent practices take advantage of any gap in our knowledge. When you read the rest of this post about deceptive practices related to online purchasing, … Continue reading
Holidays
With three senior parents I am thinking a lot about holidays — past and future — how wonderful they can be and how to celebrate without a lot of brouhaha. I am concentrating on making each holiday, in this case Thanksgiving, special but also as simple as possible. This year we’ve navigated lots of health … Continue reading
Stages of Dementia, Part II
Keep in mind that these stages are general guidelines that help people understand dementia’s progression, and that some professionals do not use them as disease guideposts. I am applying them to the dementia that is occurring in my family. Another family may not have anywhere near the same experience. By the time stage five of … Continue reading
Stages of Dementia – Part I
When you read about dementia you learn that the disease presents itself in stages. The literature seems to describe six stages, seven if you think of stage one as the “normal” range in which most of us function. I am reconstructing these stages, attempting to understand the progression of the disease in our family. In … Continue reading
Going to the Emergency Room/Hospital With an Elder Parent
With all of our national health problems and the extreme burdens on hospital emergency departments, when very old senior citizens visit they require special care. Their bodies, attention spans, and fearfulness cause extreme disorientation after a short time in an emergency facility. Disorientation occurs quickly. I’ve now observed this several times now with several parents. … Continue reading
The Parenting Circle
First we are born and most of us are lucky enough to be an immediate part of a family, taken care of and loved by our parents. They support us, encourage us, model for us, confuse us, drive us crazy sometimes, and in general help us figure out how to grow up. The process can … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 